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Episode 26: The trouble with positive emotions, with Julia McQuade
487 Plays1 month ago
Max is joined by Julia McQuade from Amhurst College, USA.
Julia has published this paper: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10802-024-01237-2
She studied the regulation of positive emotion in adolescents with ADHD, and found that control of these emotions predicted social success.
Max unpicks the implications of this and tries to to get too depressed about it!
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Personal Insights
00:00:08
Speaker
Hello! Hello! Welcome to the ADHD Science Podcast. Welcome, welcome. I am Max Davey. And I'm Tess Davey. um you Most of you will know us already because we you will have listened to us before, but basically we've got ADHD.
00:00:21
Speaker
And I'm a pediatrician and... I'm not a pediatrician. You're about to be a psychology student. I'm about to be. It's imminent. Anyway, so we haven't...
Recent Events and Episode Preview
00:00:32
Speaker
What have we been up to since we last did an episode? we've Honestly, we we spoke at the Norwich thing. Yeah, we spoke at the Norwich thing. That was very cool.
00:00:41
Speaker
um I've not been up to much. You've been up been working. I've been just starting new job and getting used to that. Yeah. How's that going? It's all right. Yeah. It's pretty good. Pretty cool. Pretty awesome. Yeah.
00:00:52
Speaker
I don't want talk too much about it.
Interview with Julia McQuaid on ADHD and Emotions
00:00:55
Speaker
um So what we're going to do today is another episode where sadly, sad face, ah Tess was not present for the episode. What was I doing?
00:01:04
Speaker
You're working probably. Probably. um And ah I interviewed Julia McQuaid. um It's momentarily... Oh, I was in Manchester. Oh, you were Manchester. was um i Not working.
00:01:20
Speaker
um ah Julia McQuaid is a psychologist who works somewhere in Massachusetts, and I've forgotten where. Sorry, Julia. um And we have a very
Study on Positive Emotion Regulation and Social Impact
00:01:28
Speaker
nice chat about... Now, we talk a lot in this podcast about emotional dysregulation.
00:01:34
Speaker
Do we not? Yes, we do. Now, what Julia had done is a paper on the impact of... but we So we talk about negative emotional regulation a lot, as in, I can't control my anger or my sadness or my worry and all of that.
00:01:49
Speaker
But what Julia studied, which I'd never seen before, is the regulation of positive emotion, the regulation of excitement, the regulation of...
00:01:59
Speaker
I mean, I talked a lot about excitability and she sort of put some nuance on it, but I'll leave that to the to to the recording itself. The point is that the the worse you are at containing and and keeping your joy and your excitement excitement in check, the worse you do socially.
00:02:19
Speaker
Right. So you are more likely to be rejected by peers, you're more likely to struggle with your peer relationships and all of that. Because you're too excited. Yeah. Yeah.
00:02:30
Speaker
And I thought... Sounds about right, to be honest. You think that's about right? It does sound about right. But i've thought I thought, mean, so one of the things we talk about is how I find that quite a depressing... Yeah, it is quite sad, but what you have to do essentially, and i I know that I'm probably skipping the whole thing here, is just find other people who are also like that. And then you're fine. Excellent.
00:02:51
Speaker
Well, we've solved that problem. Great, sorted. Birds of a feather. Yeah, exactly. And I think that's probably the the solution in the end. But of course, you spend, particularly when you're younger, when you're going through school, you spend a lot of time with people you have not chosen to spend time with.
00:03:06
Speaker
Yes. And also at work. And in the workplace as well. Yeah, yeah. Wow. I can't wait to hear more about this during the episode. Well, here we are. Let's go, let's go, let's go. Go,
00:03:20
Speaker
So, welcome, Julia, to the ADHD Science Podcast. Thank you. Nice to have nice to be here. So, Julian McQuade, do you want to introduce yourself?
Social Impairments and Emotional Dysregulation in ADHD
00:03:29
Speaker
And then we can get on with asking about your really interesting and arresting paper that I found.
00:03:34
Speaker
Yeah. So I'm a child clinical psychologist and I'm also an associate professor at Amherst College, which is outside of Boston in Massachusetts. Excellent. And sounds like somewhere I should be visiting at some point. is so I've um've always wanted to go to that part of America. We'd love to have you.
00:03:49
Speaker
Yes, that'd lovely. i A little little little Massachusetts tour would be lovely. um So ah I um found this paper, which is Positive Emotional Dysregulation and showed Social Impairments in Adolescents with and without ADHD, um which I will post a link to in the the show notes.
00:04:08
Speaker
um Well, i think I suppose I just want to leave it to you to describe what was the question you were asking? What was the question you you were looking at in this paper? Sure. Happy to talk about it. So um probably you've talked about this before.
00:04:23
Speaker
We know that children and adolescents with ADHD often struggle socially. So they may have trouble making friends, keeping friends. They might be disliked by peers. They may be aggressive. They get bullied, ah variety of things. And so my research has always been interested in like, why is that? What are the contributing factors that make social um relationships more difficult for children with ADHD? Um,
00:04:50
Speaker
There's a lot of work that I've done and others have done that suggests that problems with emotion regulation are part of the picture. So getting, being really emotionally reactive, intense with emotions, having trouble modulating emotions, and that that might contribute to why um people with ADHD can struggle socially.
00:05:09
Speaker
um But almost all the research out there on this has thought about emotions in terms of ah the negative emotions, anger, sadness, anxiety.
00:05:20
Speaker
and And those are really important. And there's a lot of good work out there to suggest that when individuals with ADHD struggle to regulate those kinds of negative emotions, they also have more trouble socially.
00:05:33
Speaker
um And so I was actually interested in, though, well, what about positive emotions? So things like excitement, happiness, Do those matter at all? And um it actually turns out we have no idea as researchers um about whether people with ADHD really are struggling with how they approach or manage positive emotions, um or if that matters for um impairment.
00:05:57
Speaker
But if we like walk back in terms of our social relationships, um we hope there's a lot of positive emotions there. And there's a lot of theories that Positive emotions are part of what facilitate bonding and closeness. And like we all in our friendships, we want joy and happiness and we want to laugh and and we hope those things are there. And so I was interested in then whether or not um there is a role that like regulation of positive emotions plays in sort of the social functioning of children and especially children who have ADHD.
00:06:33
Speaker
Mm hmm. Okay. So one of the things that I was wondering about is um why do you think, because we always we talk about emotional dysregulation an awful lot on the podcast. It's one of our kind of main topics, it would say, because it's a really active it's a really active research area because it's not been explored historically all that much, but also because it's extremely pertinent to the community and people talk about it a vast amount, as you know, if you've ever been in a room with people with ADHD.
00:07:06
Speaker
Why do you think... people with ADHD find it hard to modulate their emotions.
Intensity of Emotions in ADHD and Behavior Control
00:07:13
Speaker
What do you think is the link between the more kind of conventional symptoms of ADHD and this set of symptoms?
00:07:22
Speaker
I mean, i by all means say, I don't know. but yeah What is your feeling about it? I have a couple different feelings about it. um And I also think it depends what we're talking about when we're talking about emotion regulation.
00:07:36
Speaker
my sense is that people with ADHD may experience emotions more intensely, both positive emotions and negative emotions. And just in general, when our emotions are more intense, it is harder for all of us to be effective.
00:07:51
Speaker
um And so part of the question, I think, is like, is this just about frequency in which intense emotions happen? And if those happen more for people with ADHD, um that's going to be a challenge. um And that that may relate to biological differences, you know, that like,
00:08:08
Speaker
that exist that I don't think we have fully identified. that Maybe there's hints. um I also think though that effectively modulating, so changing our emotions so that they're so that we're able to like navigate life despite them requires executive functioning. it's a top There's a top down...
00:08:29
Speaker
cognitive control piece to emotion regulation that we know about. And the emotion researchers study that. And so for people with ADHD, I think a core challenge is really that top-down self-regulation.
00:08:44
Speaker
And so I think it shows up in symptoms like paying attention and choices, but it also, I think, shows up when we're emotional. And so I think another possibility really is that the same reasons that doing homework or staying organized around tasks um is hard.
00:09:04
Speaker
It's the same kind of, we it's asking some of the same things in terms of being able to modulate emotions, make effective choices, think through how am I going to be effective here? yeah um And it just may be harder when you have ADHD. Yeah.
00:09:21
Speaker
Yeah, okay. and That makes a ton of sense. And I suppose the other way is, I always think about it is, youre you you may have the same amount of emotions, but you're going they're going to be much more obvious because you're going to be impulsively showing them much more. You're not not going to be kind of keeping them to yourself quite as much.
00:09:37
Speaker
So there's that thing, there's that distinction between subjective emotions felt and and its emotions expressed. And I suspect that for that for a given amount of subjective emotion, there'll be more expression in ADHD.
00:09:49
Speaker
For reasons of impulsivity and and so on. um Okay, great. So you that's your question, but looking at the impact of positive emotional regulation, so but the regulation of positive emotions.
00:10:03
Speaker
Who was your sample and how did you go about studying them? So I had a sample of adolescents. I'd actually been tracking them since childhood. And um in my research, I tend to think of ADHD as a dimensional continuum.
00:10:17
Speaker
yeah So I usually try to include individuals with ADHD, those who just have high symptoms, but wouldn't meet like the DSM criteria, and then also kids who don't. So I had a sample that looked like that, where I had kids with a very right wide range of ADHD profiles. About half of them half of the sample had sort of clinically significant ADHD symptoms.
00:10:39
Speaker
And so in adolescence, we were doing a follow-up of that sample. And I started thinking about positive emotion dysregulation and so and had looked around and there had been like nothing in the literature. No, I've never, that's why it jumped out at me. I was what was this?
00:10:55
Speaker
I know. And it's sort of staggering actually, I think that that people haven't been thinking about this much. And so I just decided to include a measure. um There's not many measures out there. And so I found a measure though, that was designed as a self-report.
00:11:09
Speaker
And so I had all the adolescents fill it out. And so they reported on, it's a measure that is sort of looking at kind of behavioral manifestations around when you're really happy yeah how but do you how How do you react and where might you but have sort of trouble?
00:11:24
Speaker
um And so it was in some ways a little exploratory, though I did have some hunches that I really did wonder if this would be connected to social impairments. But given how little work there was, I wasn't sure um how adolescents would rate themselves and if that would matter.
00:11:41
Speaker
Okay, so that here here we have to get to the the sort of the sort of result of
Theories on Positive Emotions and Impulsive Behaviors
00:11:46
Speaker
it, I suppose. What did you find when you you looked at these adolescents and their self-rating of, ah could we call it excitability? Is that is that too reductive?
00:11:56
Speaker
I think it might be a little different than that. There were sort of three areas. So it was, um, if, when you're happy, do you inhibit positive emotions? Like, do you feel shame and guilt? Oh, wow. Okay.
00:12:08
Speaker
So that was one domain. Another domain was when you're happy, do you have trouble paying attention and concentrating? Uh-huh. And then the other one was when you're happy, ah do you have trouble controlling your behavior? okay So there yes it's's it's three different things, one of which you could call excitability. That's really helpful.
00:12:26
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. um And so so what we found, and so adolescents had also reported on a number of aspects of their social functioning. So what's their best friend relationship like? Is it is there conflict? Is it supportive? Yeah.
00:12:39
Speaker
um Do peers accept them? Are they bullied? Are they aggressive with other with other peers? And um ah do they tend to have friends who break the rules um and get in trouble?
00:12:50
Speaker
um So we'd measured all these social markers. um And we did some analyses. We tried to be pretty stringent because we knew ADHD symptoms probably predict social impairment. We also know that like dysregulation of negative emotions should predict social impairment. So we accounted for all that statistically.
00:13:08
Speaker
And we're really interested in, you know, does this positive emotion regulation also matter? Like, so does that predict anything uniquely? And what popped out across a number of the social domains is that it was this, when you're happy, difficulty controlling behavior.
00:13:24
Speaker
yeah So when adolescents said that when they're happy, they have more difficulty controlling their behavior. That predicted more conflicts with their best friends. They were more aggressive with peers.
00:13:35
Speaker
They were more likely to be friends with peers who broke the rules and they were more likely to be bullied. And that's like above and beyond ADHD. It's it's ah not just negative emotion dysregulation.
00:13:47
Speaker
So something special about like, if when you're really happy, you have trouble controlling behavior seems to seems to matter. in terms of adolescents' social functioning.
00:13:59
Speaker
So just just to kind of spell that out, the more, I know I'm using this word, but but the more excitable you are in a sense as an adolescent with ADHD, the worse your social function.
00:14:12
Speaker
Yeah. And we found it across our whole sample. So whether you had ADHD or not, that that was a link, that that was a link. that's interesting. Yes, of course. Yeah. yeah i'm what so So the big question, well, first, I mean, the big question is,
00:14:25
Speaker
my first reaction is that's really depressing, but we'll come back to that in a minute. The second is, why do you think that is?
Support Strategies for Emotion Regulation in ADHD
00:14:31
Speaker
What what do you think is driving that connection? Yes. So I think we need a lot more work. um But there's like a number of like theories out there that I think could help.
00:14:39
Speaker
So um we know like like positive emotions help with facilitating social relationships, but there's also all this research that suggests that sometimes positive emotions can be problematic.
00:14:50
Speaker
And one of the things that happens is that when we experience positive emotions, we tend to see it as a signal for action. And so we become motivated to meet our needs. um And that for some people, when they are experiencing positive emotions, they may want to like in sort of rash,
00:15:08
Speaker
impulsive ways, do things yes to get what they want. hu And I think when we're talking about that, this aspect of like impulse control, when you're happy, that's kind of what we're talking about is that you're, you may really be like impulsive, trying to get what you want, being sort of driven.
00:15:24
Speaker
And so even when you're happy, you may be making choices that are not in the longterm in the best interests. And you may be choosing things that feel really and reinforcing in the moment.
00:15:35
Speaker
And so my sense is that that could be, explain some of these connections. Like, why are you aggressive if you um have problems controlling behavior when you're happy? Well, you know, peer aggression, it's bad, but it also has some benefits. Like it can make you more popular with your peers and have social power.
00:15:54
Speaker
It can also be exciting and dramatic. Yeah. And so it may be that like for kids who really get impulsive when things are fun, they may tend to gravitate towards something like aggression because it feels reinforcing in the moment.
00:16:09
Speaker
i And it may also be though that like, those are kids who then are not thinking things through as clearly in these like fun, happy moments. Exactly, And that can be annoying to peers. And so peers may then bully them.
00:16:21
Speaker
They may get in fights with their peers. um So it may it may be that also there's just less conscientiousness. So I was, because that's, that's what I wonder about is that effectively, particularly adolescent peers may find the non-regulated over, you know, ah expression of positive emotions, annoying you know,
00:16:42
Speaker
just sort of embarrassing even. Yes. um And I suppose that's the thing that I find sort depressing about it in a way. Do you think, I mean, obviously one of the interesting questions is, do you think, do we have any idea whether this is specific to adolescents or whether this is also children and in adults, would it also pertain to? Yes.
00:17:02
Speaker
I don't think we know. i' have a new study that i I looked at in childhood where I'm finding a replication um this finding. So I think that I i feel so somewhat confident that maybe we are also going to see this in childhood.
00:17:15
Speaker
um i don't have a reason to think it wouldn't extend to adulthood. But I also think that like, you know, in science, it's about the accumulation of evidence. and This is all so novel, that it's hard to really step out on a limb and say, oh, this is how it is until we have more information.
00:17:31
Speaker
i think in many ways to me, this study was more just a signal that we really should think about positive emotions for children and especially children with ADHD, that that they might be important and there might be places where they're struggling, even when there's happiness, joy, excitement.
00:17:48
Speaker
And they may need support in those moments. i i Yeah, I think that brings me to my next question, which is what is what does this mean if you're looking after somebody, if you're the parent of someone, an adolescent with ADHD, or you're the doctor looking after and advising the parent and the young person, what's the implication of what you're finding for, you know, try and be a bit less happy? you know I'm not saying that that's the implication, but what is the implication?
00:18:14
Speaker
Yeah. Totally. i mean, so in my mind, like I have kids, I have i have a seven and a 10 year old and like they go into situations where they get real excited and happy, like birthday parties or Christmas, you know, like there's, these are moments that happen. And in my mind, what this might point to is that for people with ADHD, they may need a little more external support.
00:18:36
Speaker
to like regulate behavior in those moments. Right, yeah. And I think we sometimes forget those. We worry a lot when kids get distressed and frustrated and upset, you know, and I think parents are really attuned to those moments.
00:18:48
Speaker
But also I think when things are fun and exciting, that children with ADHD or adolescents, they may need some of those external prompting downregulate or to kind of control behavior that we may you may not just be able to let them kind of run free in those moments because it just may be an area that's hard for them.
00:19:09
Speaker
yeah um And so my like thought is that I hope it's not that we like squash joy or we're not supposed to be as happy, but that it may be that that's a place where individuals with ADHD maybe need to understand that they could be vulnerable to acting in ways that aren't going to work out for them so well.
00:19:28
Speaker
And so they need strategies, um which is sort of, I think what we know for ADHD in general is that um it's being aware of the ways in which it shows up and then having strategies to support like so that it doesn't become an issue. And if the right strategies are in place, then, you know, people have tools.
00:19:48
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense, actually. I suppose as a parent of some ah you know three three people with ADHD, who are much older, actually, but it's like, it is still, oh, here's another situation where you cannot relax.
00:20:03
Speaker
yeah If they're really happy and really you know kind of excited, then you absolutely, it's another period period where you do need to be on your guard. But actually, that does...
00:20:15
Speaker
That's not probably to most, I think a lot of eighty eight parents of ADHD kids listening might go, well, yeah, you do have to be um on your guard at a birthday party. It's a perfect example for them getting overexcited, overwrought, and therefore actually things switching. You talked about the link with aggression, how quickly you get from this intense joy to anger, irritation when things yeah It's a fragile moment in a way. It is.
00:20:43
Speaker
Yeah. And I think I would love more research on that because I think it's true. Anecdotally, that's my sense is that I think for perhaps kids with ADHD, that in these intense positive emotions can tip into um other places that are more problematic or that then there's like frustration um and other secondary things that happen. But we don't know much about it in terms of research yet.
00:21:08
Speaker
No, and I suppose the question is whether there's, to what extent being hyper, having your emotions hyper activated in a positive way and then being hyper activated in a negative way, to watch to what extent that's the same state?
Exuberance, ADHD, and Social Functioning
00:21:24
Speaker
Yes. um Obviously not entirely, but but but but in quite a large way. and And that might explain some of the connections with some of the other negative ah um outcomes that you found, of course. Yeah, yeah.
00:21:37
Speaker
And I will say, I think there's some cool research happening around temperament, things like um exuberance, temperamental exuberance, that there's some individuals who tend to like have positive affect and be very social and approach and interested. um And that it seems like so that is a kind of trait that characterizes some people with ADHD, not all people with ADHD. Not by any means. like Yeah. And so I think also like this might be like a,
00:22:07
Speaker
Positive emotion challenges might be a specific trait that sometimes happens with ADHD. And so it's also, I think there's a lot of questions about, so when those things are paired, like what's the profile or like, you know, and I, my guess is there's strengths and weaknesses that come from being someone who has like high positive affect and is very sort of approach oriented.
00:22:31
Speaker
I don't think it's all negative necessarily. Yeah. But it may be something that, um I mean, there's a lot of it would be due to, it would be related to what your environment's like, what the culture is like and how supported you are and how, but I mean, i presumably there would be a really interesting um exploration of how it relates to self-esteem.
00:22:54
Speaker
Totally. Yes, absolutely. Yeah. But that's beyond the stake of the scope of your current paper. let's ah it done let's not and Let's not drift off too much. So if you were a person with ADHD, and this is a related question, I think, probably, what what are the implications of what you've found so far?
00:23:12
Speaker
So I'm a person with ADHD. I am. But let's say I'm a person with ADHD who is struggling with... the fact that people find it difficult when I'm overexcited or difficult when I'm too exuberant at work or something like that. What sort of things might you advise or or think about, ask someone to think about as a result of the kind of things that you've been thinking about?
00:23:35
Speaker
I think it's a great question. And I think i' I'd be out on too much of a limb to say people should be doing X, Y, or Z, because I don't think we really know like what what is adaptive or how how people modulate. But I think what this work certainly suggests is that some individuals with ADHD may have more challenges controlling their behavior when things are fun and happy.
00:23:58
Speaker
And so I think that knowing that may mean like maybe having strategies to stop and think and reflect before you act, um, to try to just put in some of those guardrails in the same way that I think people with ADHD can have other strategies when they know that they tend to be impulsive in certain moments.
00:24:19
Speaker
Um, and I think, so I think at this point, it's more that there's some insight that that is one possible area of challenge in social relationships that could show up.
00:24:30
Speaker
Um, And I think that's an open question though of like the extent to which can we change that if that's the thing that we struggle with. yeah Or if, you know, sometimes I think there's also insight offers opportunities for later repair. If you reckon can recognize that like that's something I'm going to have difficulty with and I know in this social situation,
00:24:51
Speaker
I did something that was maybe not ideal, being able to go back and say, I'm sorry about that. Or like, I recognize that that's something I struggle with. And I did that. You know, and I think there are questions about that for ADHD and emotion regulation about how much is there actually controls versus it's insight that we're just gaining from.
00:25:14
Speaker
I don't know yet. I think we really don't know yet. No. terms positive emotion. No, no, no. but But I think it's such an interesting, such a fascinating kind of area to to open up. I was just thinking about one thing that is often a discussion I have with with families in my clinic.
00:25:29
Speaker
that they worry that they want to not lose the exuberance and the joy and the fun of the, of the child. And I am obviously very sympathetic to that. And I think that's great, but I think this has made me think who is the exuberance for?
00:25:46
Speaker
Yeah. Is it actually something that's loved and enjoyed by the child themselves or actually is it something that makes them a perform, it is something that for the benefit of others, a performance for the benefit of others. And and actually other people love it in with you know often they'll say oh you know it can be a bit much sometimes but it's just you know it's really fun well actually who then then you're saying oh I like a bit of this person but not not all of them yeah um and so maybe if you do dial down that exuberance a little bit I'm not saying you know this I'm not shilling for big pharma here I'm not saying you know everyone should be on meds but um
00:26:23
Speaker
I think some of the discussions that I have, i do sometimes think I almost on the point of saying, well, who is this fun, but you know, mad cat, funny guy? Who is it for?
00:26:34
Speaker
Is it for him or her? Or is it for you, the parent who loves being made to laugh? or yeah you know So sometimes that we... so i think i think that sometimes that we we see people before treatment as having these strengths, but actually there may not be strengths for the person themselves. They're just strengths for other people that that other people quite appreciate about them. I don't know.
00:26:58
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's a really good point. And so since I'm sort of a research oriented person, i think this is part of why we like need more research because I think that it's kind of an open question to what extent is exuberance and excitability only positive? Is it only associated with positive outcomes or is it the fact that when we look at the data, it's it is linked to impairments. And if if that is really the case, then I think even if we can see strengths in it, it may mean some kinds of supports are necessary because it's contributing. And, you know, for for me, I i know i think most kids with ADHD who struggle socially, you know, they they don't want that.
00:27:39
Speaker
And I think sometimes they will feel sort of unsure of why it's not going so well. And like, why are they having such a hard time? And that's a terrible feeling. Why do people will find me annoying? but Right. Why, why am I not,
00:27:53
Speaker
being invited to play on the playground? And why does this kid react to me in this way? And so I think in my mind, and we know there's a lot of research that like when things are, when people struggle socially, that's a really big predictor of other impairments, like academic impairments and down the line, our adjustment.
00:28:12
Speaker
And so as there's a lot of damage that comes from struggling socially. And so to me, that being able to address those social challenges feels really important. And if it If the research turns out to tell us that being really exuberant and excitable is part of what's contributing, then I think that's a reason to say we have to figure out how to support kids in modulating that.
00:28:35
Speaker
But if the research ends up saying, no, it's like kids like that or and it's good, then that would be a different story. Yeah. But I think the other thing that people might be shouting at their device is, well, people should just accept us. you know And I think that's also really true. you know yeah and you know it does depress me that being exuberant as an adolescent is is is ah but you know socially disabling in a sense, because it shouldn't be. We should be celebrating joy. We should be celebrating
00:29:06
Speaker
creativity and all of those things and we say that we do but i think ultimately don't i mean i don't want you to think about that that that kind of you know the the kind of the neuroaffirmative kind of yes yes on this yeah and i mean i think my research group talked about this when we decided to study positive emotions because there was a little bit of this fear are we pathologizing like goodness you know and i i think um you know Some other researchers like June Gruber does a lot of work and she talks about the dark side and the light side of positive emotions. and that okay
00:29:37
Speaker
you know like i don't I think we definitely don't want to say that having excitement and exuberance is is is a bad thing. um You know, i I think it's probably context specific.
00:29:49
Speaker
You know, it depends on the context and and if you're responsive to that. um And I think we do know that children with ADHD actually have a harder time fitting their behavior into the context socially.
00:30:03
Speaker
So the reading of the room. Very familiar. Very familiar. Yeah. yeah and But like reading of the room maybe is a skill that can be learned or there can be compensated
Concluding Thoughts and Future Research
00:30:13
Speaker
for. And so I think rather than saying, let's not be exuberant or excited, yeah excited um but maybe that like it's about the fit and being able to kind of consider how are my peers doing? How are they reacting to me?
00:30:28
Speaker
You know, being able to read social cues that those might be things that could help make it so that being more of a ah high positive affect kid isn't necessarily a bad thing. You know, my my guess is that it's not simply about being joyful and excited excitable. It's about the combination of that with other things.
00:30:49
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And yes, it's it's knowing, in a way, it's knowing when to be joyful or when to express your joy in the same way that it's knowing when to express your anger and when to how and when and how to express all of your emotions. That's the the key puzzle for ADHD people.
00:31:05
Speaker
Yeah. Okay. Well, oh, yeah. So the final question. Right. Good. Final question. I almost missed out my final question. It's good. Even though it's good to test. Well, it's there's another reason why te it's a shame that Tess isn't here.
00:31:17
Speaker
ah um What what do you like to do? I mean, you've alluded to some more stuff you're doing, but what would you like to do next to look into this? Yes, so many things. But so in part, I think, you know, my study is very pre preliminary. we only had one measure that was based on the adolescent's own report of how what they do when they're happy, which is definitely not the whole picture. And so I think part of it is, is I don't think we have any idea if there's a profile of positive emotion challenges for people with ADHD.
00:31:50
Speaker
You know, are there ways in which this manifests that we would that would be helpful for us to know about as clinicians, practitioners, parents, that these are the areas of struggle that could come up.
00:32:01
Speaker
We don't know that. And so part of my work is just trying to actually measure, characterize, like, what does this look like for children with ADHD compared to kids without?
00:32:12
Speaker
Mm-hmm. And then I do a lot of work on parenting and how parents teach children about emotions. um And we know like parents are really important figures in teaching kids about negative emotions, what yeah are how parents react to kids, how they model these things, what they talk about.
00:32:30
Speaker
um i think positive emotions matter too. And I think what parents do when children are excited and happy, um i think it matters. um But we don't really know that. we have but There's not a lot of research on that in relation to ADHD.
00:32:43
Speaker
And I think it goes back to that question you asked in the beginning, like, so what what should parents do? And I think we don't really know. if we don't know if it's, is it helpful in certain situations for parents to kind of try to bring kids' emotions down? How do how do we do that in a way that doesn't communicate that we don't want joy? um yeah exactly. Other instances where it is actually really important that parents help savor and kind of keep positive feelings going? Like we don't know. um but I think we know that parents are important tools for children with ADHD in general, that parents can do a lot to support kids with that diagnosis in other ways.
00:33:24
Speaker
So i I really wonder what role could they be playing to either be helpful or less helpful um around positive emotion regulation. and Yeah, and that would start very early on in life. yeah for sure. That kind of process of,
00:33:39
Speaker
And it happens with, yeah obviously it happens with the negative the negative stuff very much as well. but But how you respond to that kind of exuberance and to what extent, yeah, but to what extent you just let it happen. Totally.
00:33:54
Speaker
And it may look really different when you have a six-year-old versus a 16-year-old. Oh, very different. We don't know. At least research-wise, we don't really know what's like, is there sort of strategies parents could be using that would be useful for them.
00:34:08
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So you, thank you very much. You've managed to make the paper that I thought was a bit depressing, feel less depressing, which is great. yeah um ah So Julie McCade, thank you very much for joining us today. um bringing a Concise summary and and discussion. So thank you so much. um I think we can limit this to one commute for our listeners, which is rather than often we have a two commute episode. This is a one commute episode. i love it yes So that's good. All right. Thank you very much. And goodbye. bye.
00:34:37
Speaker
Okay, so that was Julia. She was notable for her precise and succinct presentation. So the whole episode was only about, well, with it's half an hour plus whatever waffling we do, basically. Yeah, it's probably going to be another half an hour. That's going the late, more regular Well, what waffling are we going to do?
00:34:54
Speaker
I don't know. Do we have anything planned in the future? we want No, we don't have anything particularly. it's um I'm just trying to keep things going while you work because you're going to be away for the summer as well.
Future Episodes and Media Misinformation
00:35:06
Speaker
am.
00:35:06
Speaker
um I'm just sort of keeping keeping us sort of trickling out episodes at the moment. But yeah with my new work, my new job and your... um Same old Same old job that just takes up all your time, um it is more tricky. So the... yeah ah There won't be that many episodes in the next six months or so. We will try and keep as many out as can. And I will try to be in as many as possible. But again, um might have my soul called up to Manchester again.
00:35:35
Speaker
One thing I wanted to say is um there is probably going to be an episode at some point about misinformation about ADHD. There's a lot in the papers, particularly the evening London Evening Standard, ah basically dismissing ADHD and calling it a sham and calling it a scam. and um And I think there's a bit of momentum in the papers, particularly in the British media,
00:35:59
Speaker
against ADHD and there's this dreadful book about over diagnosis which i I'm not going to talk about today but um I yeah it's it's really based on nothing but it's making a lot of waves in the media um I will do something about it at some point but just to say we are aware of that as an organization in ADHD UK ADHD UK has been very proactive and strong in pushing back against some of that nonsense so um just again please donate to IDHD UK you get this podcast for free you will always get this podcast for free but it is supported by the charity so anything you can do to hop over to their website and make a donation would be really help our work and
00:36:47
Speaker
and Yeah, come and join the Facebook group because I'm sure that we can do a little bit of myth-busting and and kind of rapid response to some of the nonsense in the and in the papers or online. we have any Q&A episodes coming We could. We could do a Q&A.
00:37:02
Speaker
If you want like you want to participate in the Q&A, you know where to find us, Facebook group. Facebook group, and we can put a call out about, maybe call out about myths, but we sort of did that when we went and did Norwich. But maybe we could recycle some of the stuff we came up with in Norwich and do it and turn it into a podcast.
00:37:18
Speaker
Yeah, why not? It all depends on us both being in the same building for more than half an hour. Yes, it does. you know, think this is the longest conversation I've had with you in in quite a while. Quite a while. It's couple of weeks. Which is sad, to honest. which is really sad, actually.
00:37:32
Speaker
um All right, so join up to the Facebook group. Anyway. And we will see you there. Well, I will. Well, i won't see you. I'm busy. Bye.